Failure
by Katty008
Summary: DC&MK. When, in the end, your best just isn't enough, they can and will minimize their losses. Inspector Nakamori-centric, multiple character deaths.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan or Magic Kaito. That would be Gosho Aoyama.  
A/N: I hope you like my attempted Kid head. **

**Title: Failure  
Rated: T  
Genre: Tragedy/Angst**

Inspector Nakamori Ginzo, head of the Kaito Kid Taskforce, was a smart man. He could connect the dots in ways no one else thought of, and still make sense. That was, after all, why he was head of the Kaito Kid Taskforce.

So when Aoko came home crying one night, he connected the dots, regardless of how he felt about it. She was sobbing something about Kaito leaving, and how she thought he was a burglar because he was dressed in dark clothes, and how he said he might not be coming back, and how he said he loved her. Of course, Ginzo had seen that last one coming a mile off. He was, after all, Aoko's father. He knew who she liked, regardless of how clueless the two parties involved were.

But he was, after all, very good at connecting dots. And he connected these dots with the one he had been handed in the station right as he was leaving. _Don't wait up for me._ =]?). It also turned out that the policeman who had handed him it wasn't on record, and was most likely Kaito Kid. But he kept these dots to himself. After all, this sounded like something big. It always was when it came to Kid.

Aoko was crying again when he came home the next day. Apparently Hakuba was gone too. Ginzo couldn't connect that. Hakuba and Kid in cahoots? That dot was in the Zeta quadrant. But if Kid had gone to Hakuba and plead for help (something which would have required either a very good sob story or a whole lot of pleading to work), then this was beyond big. This was huge. And then, almost subconsciously, Ginzo found himself checking the obituaries.

It appeared, five days later, right next to _Osakan Teen Missing. Son of Police Commissioner Found Dead, No Cause of Death Known._ Ginzo had kept quiet, not telling Aoko. She found out at school though, and had come home crying for the third time in seven days. Ginzo almost cursed Kid's name, then realized that he was probably about to go the same way as Hakuba, if he hadn't already.

The next day, he quickly checked in at the office before storming over to Division One. He slammed his hands on the desk. "Megure. Hakuba Saguru was a good friend of my daughter's, as well as a decent ally against Kid. Show me the file." Without much further ado, Ginzo found himself with the file in hand, but couldn't make any sense of it. These dots weren't just far, far away, they didn't exist. Perfectly healthy seventeen year olds did not just drop dead of their own accord for no reason.

When he left the station afterwards, an American woman's feet fell in sync with his. "Give it up."

He looked at her strangely. "Pardon? Who are you?"

She merely smiled, giving him a victory sign. "Oh me? I'm merely Jodie-sensei, an English teacher at Teitan High. But," she added in an undertone, "In my spare time I work for Floral Bouquets International." She then walked off, leaving Ginzo thoroughly confused.

But not for long. Though he must admit, Floral Bouquets International was a pretty good fake acronym. Then it truly broadsided him. If Hakuba and Kid were involved with the FBI, then… this wasn't just beyond big. This was beyond huge. If FBI agents were in Japan, then this was international. He sent a quick prayer to the heavens for both Kaito and Kid, on the off chance they were different people involved in the same thing. And finally, finally, finally Ginzo understood exactly why Kid was so against violence. He had been fighting these guys the whole time.

Now that Ginzo knew more or less what he was looking for, he paid closer attention to the obituaries. Two days later, another suspicious one appeared. _Osakan Teen Found Dead, Torture Suspected._ He pulled out the paper that announced Hakuba's death and compared it with _Osakan Teen Missing_. Yes, they were the same person. Hattori Heiji, seventeen, teen detective, son of high police official. Mangled body washed up on the side of a river, torture suspected. Ginzo frowned. Why torture? Why not just the same treatment given Hakuba? This Hattori kid must have known something, something the killers wanted. But what? What connected him to Kaito Kid and Hakuba Saguru? The dots refused to align.

A day later he realized why the dots hadn't aligned. _Seven Year Old Found Shot._ He had been looking at it from the wrong angle. It hadn't been 'what connects Hakuba and Hattori', but 'who is connected to Hattori'. And seven year old Edogawa Conan was exactly that. The two of them were good friends it seemed, Edogawa being quite the detective himself. But why Edogawa? Edogawa was seven, hardly a threat to an international crime organization, as this seemed to be shaping up to be. Why not Kudo Shinichi, that other teen detective, the one Hattori had apparently often bragged about being both a rival and a friend? Then again, Kudo hadn't been seen in a while. Perhaps they had already gotten to him. But wouldn't a body have been found? Both Hakuba's and Hattori's had been found rather soon after death. Unless… no, it couldn't be. Yet these were people who could kill without leaving a trace. Perfectly healthy, save for the small fact of being dead. Surely that wouldn't be far from their skills, would it?

Ginzo made a frenzied dash to Division One. He sprinted into Megure's office without so much as a by-your-leave and locked the door. He made a quick stop to pull the shades before once again slamming both hands on the desk. "Kudo Shinichi and Edogawa Conan."

"Edogawa Conan was just found dead. The kid was a body magnet and a good detective. Now all I need is for Kudo to magically show up again and find the killers."

"You won't find the killers. And Kudo won't show up. Kudo is dead."

"WHAT? What do you mean, he's dead?"

"Bullet straight to the heart, body found yesterday evening."

"But… but that's Conan."

"No, that's Kudo Shinichi."

"You can't possibly be saying they're the same person, could you?"

Ginzo fixed Megure with a look. He was promptly thrown out of the office and called a nutter. However, he smiled softly to himself as he walked back to his own desk, hoping that just maybe he had planted the seed of doubt in Megure's mind. Once back at his desk he went about the task of trying to track down 'Jodie-sensei', but it turned out she had gone on vacation with no way to contact her. He should have seen that one coming.

In the end, it turned out that Kid was particularly slippery. It was a whole two weeks before one Kuroba Kaito's body was found, dumped in a piled of fisherman's rope, shot multiple times. Ginzo didn't bother not telling Aoko, and instead told her to take the day off. She was still crying when he came home from work. Ginzo thrice cursed him for telling Aoko he loved her before going off and dying, breaking her heart in the process.

Inspector Nakamori Ginzo was known for connecting the dots. So when Inspector Megure was found dead the next day, he knew it was his fault, regardless of how much of a suicide it was made to look like. These were people who could kill without leaving a cause of death and could shrink people into children. Obviously faking a suicide was not beyond them. And he realized that they killed Megure because he told Megure what he knew, and that they were minimizing losses. The fact that four teenagers could cause them any losses at all only underlined the lost genius the four were. But if they had already killed Megure, that meant he was next.

This was an international criminal organization. There was nowhere he could hide. He could only hope to get Aoko far, far away. And so he announced that he was sending her to live with relatives in the United States. She begged and pleaded, threw a temper tantrum even, but he was steadfast in his decision. He only knew that he couldn't tell her why, otherwise she would die too. She stormed about as she packed her things, sending him glares whenever she passed him. He ignored them, too caught up in an article about a fire that destroyed a home. Both occupants, a scientist and a young girl, died in the fire, which also spread to the Kudo mansion next door before it was quenched. Somehow he didn't think that was coincidence.

He dropped Aoko off at the airport as soon as she was done packing, booking the next flight out. From there he called the relatives, telling them of her arrival. Then he left, not even bothering to look back.

The front door of his home was wide open, and he smiled bitterly. He walked in, but stopped after shutting the door. "Come out, I know you're in here."

A tall, blond man emerged from the shadows. "You're a sharp one, Inspector Nakamori. Unfortunately, you cut yourself good. No hard feelings I hope."

"Heh. No hard feelings."

"That was smart of you, getting your daughter out of the country. The United States was a particularly good choice. What with the FBI and the CIA both on our tails, we don't have as big of a presence there. Although, Witness Protection might have been a better choice than relatives."

"If there's one thing I've figured out, it's that you guys are very good at covering your trails. Don't worry, she knows nothing. I made sure of that. That bridge is gone in a towering inferno."

"A man's love for his only daughter. How touching. Don't worry. Vermouth is currently busy tracking down the Kudo couple. They're proving even more slippery than Kid if you would believe it. Unless she becomes noisy, she should be fine."

"Good. But before I die, mind clarifying something for me? How 'noisy' exactly were Kuroba Kaito, Hakuba Saguru, Hattori Heiji, and Kudo Shinichi?"

"How noisy? Kuroba Kaito, AKA Kaito Kid, was so noisy I couldn't hear myself think. The quest for immortality is an endless one, and he kept getting in our way. Both him and his father. Yes, that was no stage accident. But I digress. Kaito Kid was a fly asking to get squashed, but always darting away at the last second. As for the Brit, Hakuba Saguru, he was much like you in the way that you both cut yourselves good. He figured out why Kid did what he did, and confronted him about it. Demanded in on the operation so to speak. After all, he was a good guy. Unfortunately the undercover life didn't suit him, and we ratted him out easily. Same with Hattori Heiji, AKA the Detective of the West. He figured out that Kudo was Edogawa and demanded in. He was slightly better at hiding though. When we finally caught him we knew that he knew where Kudo was, but we had no idea about Edogawa. We did our best to get the information from him, but he died before we got it. However, right about then was when Edogawa Conan, AKA Kudo Shinichi, AKA the Detective of the East, knocked on our door looking for his friend. We, like you, added two and two and got five. So he died."

"And what did Kudo Shinichi do in the first place to warrant this attention?"

"Wrong place, wrong time. He stumbled on a bit of blackmailing. We thought we'd gotten rid of him, but it seemed there was a slight chance of shrinking that we didn't know about. Which led us to the inventor of the poison, who had also shrunk and defected."

"The fire at that scientist's house."

"You're good. If you weren't so good we'd be happy to let you work for us. But you're too good. And now you die."


End file.
